The Argument
by bookwormgirlLH
Summary: After what seemed like a normal Steptoe squabble, Albert finds a note from his son which makes him realise how much Harold means to him... Possible suicide trigger. Please R&R!
1. Regretting

"Dad!" Harold called as he slammed into the house. He was soaking wet: his hair was stuck flat to his head, his water logged coat was dripping onto the carpet, his saturated boots squelched disgustingly with every step he took, and hd was clutching a sodden bag of rags to his chest as he shivered violently from exposure. He squelched into the living room to see Albert, his father, staring back at him, a blanket across his shoulders.

. "Rainin' out?" Albert asked without a hint of sarcasm.

Harold looked daggers at him. " is that meant to be funny?"

Albert, realising that Harold was in a bad mood, decided to not make any more jokes and silently took the wet bag from Harold's numb hands. As soon as his hands were free, Harold blew hard on them to try and get some warmth back into his frozen digits.

But Albert couldn't stay quiet for long, for he was bursting with questions after spending the whole day alone: "How much did you get for these? What are they anyway, cream or dark? "

Harold sighed, " Honestly Dad, I fet bombarded with the same questions every day- and the answers don't never change. " He began to make up a conversation between himself and Albert, doing a surprisingly accurate impression of his father: "'Have you put the horse away? ' 'Yes, Dad.' ; 'Have you fed the 'orse?' 'Yes Dad.' ; ' You don't treat that horse good enough, he likes me a lot better cause I care for him right.' 'I know, Dad.' ; 'What rags did you get?' 'A mix of cream and dark, Dad.' "

Albert scowled at his son, growling "You toerag!" at him, before sticking his head into the bag of rags. He then looked up, a look of disgust on his wrinkled face."These're useless, Harold. What did I tell you - always look at the rags before you buy 'em." A thought came into Albert's head. "How much did you pay for 'em, 'Arold?"

Harold ducked his head, "It wasn't my fault, Dad, there was this old woman and she made me feel guilty with a sob story, so I ended up gjving her..." He mumbled before his voice tailed away.

"Well?" Albert prompted irritably.

"Half a crown." Harold whispered, body tensing up in anticipation of Albert's reaction.

. "Half a crown! " Albert exploded. "That's more than we earn in a fortnight!"

"I'm sorry, Dad - it was a mistake." Harold replied tearfully.

"But we can't afford any more of your mistakes - I didn't raise you like this, but you've still managed to become a terrible rag and bone ma n!" Albert lost it completely, years of pent up irritation of his son poring from his mouth in a sea of rage. "You're a useless totter and a useless son! I wish you'd never been born! I wish your mother was still alive and that you died instead of her!"

They both stopped dead, unable to believe what Albert had just said.

"I-I'm sorry, Harold." He croaked, trying to touch his son's soaking arm, but Harold flinched away.

. "Get away from me!" He cried, turning and running from the room, slamming the door behind him. He hurtled up the stairs and barricaded himself into his bedroom, leaving his father alone in the living room.

Albert sank to the floor and put his head in his hands. What had he done?


	2. Suicide

Harold, still shivering, hastily shrugged off his drenched clothes and dumped them on the floor before curling up on top of his bed in his damp vest and boxer shorts. Burrowing his head into his pillow, he let his tears flow from his eyes as great sobs wracked his body, so upset he could barely breathe.

"No one's ever cared about me." Harold muttered to himself, voice wavering as he continued to howl in agony. "He hates me, everyone hates me and it's not fair." He wrapped his arms around his chest, trying futility to relieve the pain Albert's comment had caused.

Harold thought longingly of his mother, the only who ever truelly loved him, "I miss you, mum, why did you have to go and leave me with HIM?"

A thought suddenly crept into Harold's broken mind: "He won't miss me, Mum, if I go and join you, I promise." He raised his head, a warped smile appearing on his tear stained face. Staring up at the ceiling, Harold imagined that his mother was listening as he said "You hear me, Mum, I's going to join you." /

He leaped to his feet, still sobbing but a lot calmer now he'd made a decision, and rummaged through his draws until he found a pen and paper. Sitting down again, Harold began to write a letter to his father, but he found it hard to put all of his emotions onto such a small and tatty piece of paper, and his lack of schooling made writing difficult anyway. When he finally finished his note, Harold posted it under the door and grabbed his cutthroat razor from his bedside cabinet.

/ Before he could back out of it, Harold took a deep, ragged breath and, gripping the deadly blade in his still numb fingers, suddenly sliced The razor across his wrist. Agony flooded through him as blood poured from the would, but Harold kept his lips clamped together, so the only sound he made was a high pitched, but quiet, groan. He was soon drenched in blood and found his legs were giving way, so Harold let himself collapse onto the bed. Rolling onto his back, Harold struggled to hold the razor in his limp, slippery left hand, but somehow managed to cut a much clumsier gash in his right wrist as tears poured down his pale cheeks./

But despite the searing pain, Harold tried to keep quiet and layed as still as he could as his life drained from his self inflicted wounds, until he passed out from shock and rolled off of the bed with a thud...


	3. The note

Albert was used to Harold running off and sulking after an argument, and although he bitterly regretted what he'd said to his son, Albert presumed that Harold was just sulking now. That is, until he heard the thud./

"What are you doin' up there, 'Arold?" He called up, trying to sound as calm as possible. "Harold? " He repeated uncertainly. /

Although it may not have looked like it, Albert really cared about his son, so crept up the stairs to check that he was alright. Upon reaching the landing, Albert spotted a piece of paper outside Harold's door, which he picked up. After adjusting the paper's distance from his face until he could actually see the words, Albert began to read note, horror flooding throuh his body and tears rolling down his cheeks as realisation of what Harold had done began to dawn on him: _Dear Dad, _it read, and Albert could hear Harold's voice in his head as he read it. _I have tthought about it and have decided that the world would be a better place without me- _ Albert stopped reading at that point, and dropped the note, feeling faint. "Oh my Gawd." He whispered.

Struggling to breathe, Albert banged futily on the door before running back down the stairs, legs wobbling violently. Picking up the phone with his shaking hands, Albert dialed 999, before his knees bucked and he sank to the ground. "Can I have an ambulance please?" He said shakily.

When the woman on the other end responded, speaking calmly in attempt to calm Albert down, he added, "my son's locked himself in his room and..." Albert took a deep breath, trying to stop crying. "I think he's tried to kill himself. " ...


	4. 999

The few minutes that Albert had to wait for the ambulance to arrive felt like hours. He simply sat with his back to the wall, chin on his knees, praying for Harold to still be alive as he sobbed. He hadn't cried so much since his wife died 32 years ago, and remembered how Harold was the one who soothed him, not the other way around.

When the paramedics knocked on the door, Albert hauled himself to his feet, staggering over to he door before letting them in. The two male paramedics asked where Harold wasm and after Albert told them which room was his, they hurried up the stairs, one carrying a massive bag and the other a stretcher. The female paramedic, who looked very young, smiled reassuringly at the old man.

"My name's Lizzy and I'm a student paramedic." She said before, seeing how wobbly Albert looked, offering him her arm and leading him upstairs after the others, asking Albert questions about Harold and what happened that he could only respond to with whimpers.

The two male paramedics had failed to open the door without damaging it, so now decided to kick it in. After one heavy blow, the door splintered, and the three paramedics managed to get into the room, leaving an anxious Albert leaning weakly against the bannister, But he couldn't stand the suspense, and stumbled though the doorway.

He stopped, staring in horror. Harold was lying unconscious on the floorboards in an expanding pool of his own blood, his white underwear stained scarlet, with a deep, jagged gash on the inside of each wrist. His face was deathly pale, an eerie contrast to the bright red blood ,

"He's dead!" Albert cried, beginning to hyperventilate.

Lizzy, who had just raised and supported Harold's legs and was now taking his cartoid pulse in his neck as the male paramedics bandaged up his wrists, looked up, "He isn't dead, Mr. Steptoe, but he's in the late stages of shock."

Albert looked confused, " I'm in shock too, but I'm not bleeding."

The paramedics tried hard not to laugh at Albert's ignorance.

"Shock, in medical terms, Mr Steptoe, is what happens when the organs don't get enough odygen. In your son's case, it is through lack of blood." One of the men explained as they slid Harold onto a stretcher and strapped him into place.

"W-ill he be ok?" Albert whispered.

"He should be, " Lizzy replied as the male paramedics picked up the stretcher and she the bag. "Would you like to accompany your son to hospital?" She asked.

Albert nodded and soon found himself in the back of an ambulance beside the male paramedic who spoke to him and watched helplessly as he fed a tube down Harold's throat to help him breath.

Muttering under his breath, Albert whispered to his unconcious son all the way to the hospital, where Harold was wheeled away from him, leaving Albert by himself in A and E, feeling completely alone, despite the fact that the hospital was as overcrowded as always, and wishing with all his heart that Harold was going to pullvthrough.


	5. Coma

Albert sat outside Harold's room at the hospital, head bowed, waiting for the doctor to emerge and tell him the full extent of Harold's injuries.

"He's got his own room," Albert muttered to himself, "if there wasn't much wrong with 'im, he'd be on a ward, so he must be really bad,"

He was so deep in thought that he didn't hear the middle aged Doctor approach him, and jumped when spoken to. "Mr Steptoe." The doctor said,

Albert looked up, and the doctor could see that he had been crying, for his eyes were blood shot and their lids red and puffy.

"I can safely tell you that your son is stable, Mr Steptoe-"

""Thank Gawd!" Albert cried,

'But he is still critically ill. He lost over three and a half pints of blood, so we have already given him a blood transfusion, and are about to give him another now, ." The doctor paused. "But whilst Harold's physical injuries can be easily fixedm I am more concerned about his mental health. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?"

"Okay" Albert replied shakily, not wanting to talk about it, but not having much choice.

"What happened before the incident? "

"We-we 'ad an argument an' I told 'im that he was useless and that..." he began to sob again, "I wished he had died instead of his mother." Albert broke down completely,

The doctor put his arm around the old man, "There, there, Mr Steptoe," he said soothingly, "we all say things we regret when we're angry, "

"Yeah, but I've never made him try to kill himself before." Albert howled.

A nurse came out of the room. "I've started the next transfusion, so you can go in now. " she said, taken aback by the sight of Albert crying his eyes out, but not mentioning it.

Albery took a deep, shudering breath, wiping his eyes and nose on the back of one of his tatty gloves. "Okay, I'll see 'im."

He walked into the room and the doctor shut the door, leaving Steptoe and son alone. Albert sat down next to the bed, looking at his son, who had thick bandages on both wrists, an intravenous drip in one arm, and the same, except it was pumping blood into him, in the other. He reached out and interlocked his fingers with Harold's, gently stroking his son's pale cheek with the other, "My poor little 'Arold." Albert whispered tearfully.

But no matter how hard Albert tried, Harold didn't respond to his touch or his voice, and just layed in a coma whist his father told him again and again that he was sorry, even though he couldn't hear him...


	6. Waking up

Albert awoke with a crick in his neck. He slowly sat up, rubbing the back of his stiff neck, and saw that his fingers were still linked up with Harold's lifeless ones, realising that he had fallen asleep with his head on his son's arm whilst still sat in his orange hospital chair. Glancing at the clock, Albert saw that it was six o'clock in the morning, a whole nine hours after seeing his son in a coma for the first time. He still couldn't believe it - why did Harold have to slit his wrists, why? Albert whimpered, gently stroking the thick, bloodstained bandages on his son's wrists, and found his eyes were full of tears. He blinked furiously - crying wouldn't make Harold wake up, and he'd done enough crying lately.

He jumped, spinning around in his seat, as the door opened and a nurse entered the room. She smiled at him, "Ah, you're awake. We don't usually let people stay overnight, but as you were asleep, we didn't want to wake you."

Albert smiled weakly, "I just wish Harold would wake up."

The nurse up down the jug of water she was holding and patted the old man's shoulder, "I do too, Mr Steptoe. As he is still unconscious, we'll try giving him another blood transfusion, but if he doesn't respond to that..." Her voice tailed off.

"Will he stay this way?" He whispered.

"There is no way to tell." She took a deep breath, "Ok, Mr Steptoe, I need to change your son's bandages and then we'll do another transfusion, would you like to stay?"

Albert nodded, but gasped when he saw the jagged stitches in Harold's wrists, and found himself unable to contain his tears. The nurse smiled sympathetically at him, but went back to redressing Harold's wounds.

After the nurse had left, Albert poured himself a glass of water, before choking violently. He managed to stop choking, but not before coughing the water all over Harold. As the water hit his face, Albert saw Harold's face twitch slightly.

"'Arold?" he whispered uncertainly, grabbing his son's hand. He squeezed it tight, and to his amazement, Harold squeezed his hand back. Albert watched silently as his son's eyelids flickered and slowly opened, before Harold looked at him with his big blue eyes. Even though he looked shattered and very pale, Albert couldn't have been happier to see his son, who, despite looking half asleep, somehow seemed very alert.

"Dad?" Harold croaked.

"Oh, Harold, I'm so sorry." Albert said, tears trickling down his face.

Harold smiled weakly at his sobbing father, and whispered, "I's sorry too."

"What have you got to be sorry for?" Albert asked.

"For being such a lousy son." Harold cried, his own tears spilling over.

"You're not a lousy son - you're the best son a man could have, and I'm so sorry for what I said." Albert sobbed.

Harold didn't reply, but lifted his arms, wincing as pulled at the stitches in his wrists, and pulled his dad into a hug.

The nurse stood silently in the doorway, watching father and son embrace, and knew, whilst they were a long way away from forgetting the argument, that they truly loved each other, and that the wounds that Albert had caused were already beginning to heal...


End file.
